A novel Beluga Whale Optimization for maximum power tracking in photovoltaic systems under shading and non-shading conditions

Partial shading poses a significant challenge for PV systems as it introduces multiple peaks in the panel output characteristics, making the power extraction process more complex. Efficiently locating the global maximum power from such a complex, non-linear curve is crucial for optimal system performance. Conventional MPPT techniques often fail to achieve this, resulting in reduced efficiency. Moreover, many metaheuristic algorithms struggle to balance tracking accuracy, convergence time, oscillations, and computational complexity. Therefore, this manuscript proposes a novel natural-inspired Beluga Whale Optimization (BWO) technique that effectively track the global maximum power without compromising its performance. This iteration-based algorithm integrates effective exploration through twin equations, incorporating the influence of both the best and neighboring position with levy flight function to enhance effective exploitation, and additional particle updation using the whale fall process ensures simultaneous diverse searching phenomenon in complex search spaces resulting in smooth and faster convergence. The algorithm was extensively examined under USC and five PSCs on a 250 W panel using MATLAB 2021a Simulink platform. The effectiveness of the technique was benchmarked against state-of-the-art MPPT techniques such as PO, CSO, PSO, and GWO. The rating-based approach confirms that BWO outperformed these techniques with an average MPPT efficiency of 99.98 %, a tracking time of 0.3195 s, transient state oscillations of 10.85 %, and steady-state oscillations of just 0.000453 % within 4–5 iterations, and other related aspects. Finally, the hardware demonstration using Solar Array Simulator (SAS) validated the performance of the proposed algorithm in the real-time environment, guaranteed the suitability towards practical applications. • A new BWO-based MPPT approach for enhancing the PV system performance in both uniform and partial shading conditions. • The robustness was examined across various scenarios, consistently outperforming in all performance metrics and related aspects • The technique sets new benchmark against state-off-the-art methods in simulation. • Simulator-based real-time validation confirms the practical efficacy and excellence of the approach